You Sit On A Chair
In ‘You Sit On A Chair’, Bob Vanden Broeck takes as his starting point an extremely simple situation: a person is sitting on a chair at a table. From this static moment, a stream of observations and thoughts unfolds in the narrator’s mind. What at first seems mundane, branches out into memories, fears, desires and philosophical reflections on identity, perception, time and the relationship between body and mind. Gradually, the focus shifts from the desire to leave to a more intense way of seeing and being present.
The novel has no conventional plot but follows a hypnotic stream of consciousness in which thoughts branch out and mirror one another. In a single long, meandering stream of sentences without chapter divisions, the boundary between reality and imagination is constantly blurred. This enables the text to touch on the experience of an ultra-fast yet paralysing society, in which the narrator, caught between overstimulation and paralysis, looks existential doubt straight in the eye.
More than just a book, this is a rave. You have to let yourself go, but then you’ll be swept away – content and form come together beautifully.****NRC
By consistently using the second-person singular, Vanden Broeck draws the reader into a state of consciousness that oscillates between philosophical essay, prose poem, inner monologue and novel. An ambitious, hallucinatory reading experience.
A spellbinding prose poem you need to set aside time for, and to which you must surrender yourself heart and soul. But the reward is truly phenomenal.*****Knack Focus
A plotless novel that nonetheless manages to be incredibly gripping.****De Standaard
A daring quest which Vanden Broeck pulls off magnificently.Het Parool
